Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Hacks, Open Source, Mods
A bootloader for the rest of us
Chalk this one up to a colleague's complaining. One of my cohorts was the mostly-happy recipient of a shiny MacBook Pro today, and he was setting up Boot Camp (with the eventual intent of configuring Linux as well as OS X & Windows) and griping that he wanted to see the EFI bootloader on every restart. "What's wrong with holding down the option key?" we asked him. "Nah," he said, "I want it to ask me each time. I reboot so infrequently, chances are when I do it's because I'm switching OSes." Or something like that. I tend to tune out when people complain; it helps get through the IT day, if you know what I mean.
Well, I couldn't let the challenge sit unsolved, so here's one option for eliminating Option: the rEFIt project. This open-source alternative bootloader for Intel Macs will allow you to choose between your installed OSen at boot time, among other helpful features (and was mentioned in the comments to a TUAW post back in August). I'll get my colleague to install it and make sure it doesn't cause his MBP to detonate nearby cable modems or anything else antisocial.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
meatmcguffin said 10:18PM on 12-12-2006
Don't forget to edit the refit.conf file with textedit. You can really streamline the interface by removing the text, the title, the labels etc.
It looks fantastic when you're presented with just the Apple logo and the Windows logo side by side.
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Trevor Carpenter said 5:27AM on 12-13-2006
This sounds great. But what about "the rest of us"? Many of us still have PPC's and would love to try out a Linux distro. I'd love to give Ubuntu a spin, but I don't want to mess with my current set up.
Any suggestions for a bootloader for PPC users?
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jason said 11:46AM on 12-12-2006
So, is this just a mod to bootcamp?
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Michael Rose said 11:56AM on 12-12-2006
Actually it has far less to do with Boot Camp than you'd think. If you read the FAQ at the rEFIt page it has a nice rundown on what Boot Camp does -- gives you drivers, partitions your disk mostly. The EFI bootloader is entirely separate from Boot Camp and does not need it to function.
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Pepe said 1:23PM on 12-12-2006
What a well writen blog entry. Thank you.
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Mark said 1:26PM on 12-12-2006
Having to hold down the option key really is annoying, and it's a bigger turn off to Boot Camp that some people might think. I usually have so many programs open that when I restart it takes 2 or 3 minutes for OS X to shut them all down and restart. If I have to be around to hit the option key to invoke the bootloader, this means I have to sit around for 2 or 3 minutes watching the beach ball spin, waiting for the startup chime, when I could be using those 2 or 3 minutes to get up and make a cup of tea or do something else productive.
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Someone doing nothing illegal said 1:26PM on 12-12-2006
I have a friend who uses OSX86 on a old Dell desktop. He also uses Windows XP natively on that same Dell but on a different drive.
He wants to know if there is a BIOS version of this software, or another type of software, that has nice interface for choosing the OS?
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thomas said 3:15PM on 12-12-2006
I agree with #4. First post in awhile that made me laugh (in a good way).
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Jacques Lema said 3:31PM on 12-12-2006
That sounds nice, since in my distraction I often miss the alt key and have to reboot twice.
But there's a problem!
Then I would have to admit that I have indeed a bootcamp partition just to play games.
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Michael Rose said 3:58PM on 12-12-2006
#4, #7, thanks a bunch!
#6, it sounds like your friend is looking for a BIOS bootloader like 'lilo' or similar.
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Matt said 8:55PM on 12-12-2006
Why bother with the option key or anything? I just use the startup disk pref pane, and reboot from there. It'll reboot just where you tell it to. And boot camp gives windows the same control panel preference to do it from there too.
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Jon said 2:00AM on 12-17-2006
For the people who don't want to hold OPTION to use the regular bootloader, specifically #4:
Just go into System Preferences, select the Windows partition, and then click Reboot. No need to wait around.
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Hugh Ass said 8:21PM on 1-11-2007
A nice graphical GUI to a boot manager really matter's to me when I want to reboot. Something as good looking as this would be nice to have when choosing which partition to boot from. The simple Apple logo, Windows logo and the Linux logo. I'd feel proud of a boot manager that does that. Looking at a black screen with white text is VERY boring and Apple proved their point to sexiness when it comes to choose the OS you want before startup.
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